Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Late last year, I was really looking forward to the recreational tennis off-season (November to February). This would have been my first tennis off-season with formal coaching. I had big plans. I was finally going to learn how to hit overheads, dear reader. Big, BIG plans.

Overheads terrorize the bed sheet marks out of me. I know. I ask myself the same question: will I ever run out of tennis strokes to be terrified by?

I’m shaking my head slowly and sadly. No.

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I’m watching the Wildcard Doubles draw for the Challenger of Dallas, a $100,000 prized men’s professional tennis tournament, and something dawns on me about tennis doubles.

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There’s something wrong with my tennis head that no Pink/Katy Perry/Sara Bareilles song can help me out of.

I wouldn’t wish this mental anguish on anyone. Anyone. This sucks. Playing scared is no way to play tennis.

How to describe it. Um…

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• There’s nothing like taking a private tennis lesson to humble the rice pudding out of you.
• I very rarely leave a tennis lesson or a drill pleased with my game. I’m totally the Tim Tebow of weekend tennis. I’m awful in practice yet I inexplicably have won in match play (#WhosCarryingMeThisTime). I’m convinced more than ever that I’m rated as I am simply because I’m more athletic than most people who play recreational tennis are. I’m clearly doing tennis wrong. My coaches and I are still stuck on how to hit groundstrokes. And what the right grip is. Ugh, my grip. There’s a mark on my racquet grip that corresponds with a mark on my fist so I know how I’m supposed to hold my racquet. If you watch me closely while I’m playing a match, sometimes you’ll see me glance down at my racquet in mid rally to see if the marks match up.

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I’m constantly amazed by life and how life unfolds. I probably didn’t know you a year ago. I probably was not on your tennis team a year ago. And now here we are. Texting buddies.

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Half of house/pet sitting is pleading with dogs to go to the bathroom when it’s raining/wet outside.

As I predicted, my coach cancelled that next night’s lesson because it was too cold. Eye roll.

I’ve recently started private lessons with a second tennis coach while I’m still taking from my original teaching pro whom I’ve been with for about a year. That was a mistake. You know for two people who don’t know the other one exists – they work at different facilities, and one is new to town – they sure have loud arguments with each other. In my head.

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I hate the cold.

I hate the cold so much.

I live in Texas. I live in Texas where any hint of cold makes people think the world is about to be sucked into a black hole and all of society is nearing its end and RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, PEOPLE.

I’m not the person who gets her skirt all up in a tizzy and says no to tennis because it’s too cold. I’m the person who doesn’t get to play tennis because everyone else gets their skirts all up in a tizzy because it’s too cold.

The too-cold-to-play-tennis conversation always goes the same way, too:

The World: “Hey, do you guys think it’s too cold to play? Should we reschedule?”

Me: “No, I don’t think it’s too cold to play. Smiley face.”

The World: “Well, I think it’s too cold to play. Let’s reschedule.”

I don’t know why I even bother…

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I feel like a million things have happened since last I wrote that have rocked my personal tennis world, and at some point when my head has cleared, I hope to address the two major ones. But if I never do, which is more likely, here’s where my head is at with those things:

The Qualifying Tournament: If I weren’t me, I would concentrate on what was probably the best part of the QT, or what I like to call, the worst thing that happened to my 4.0 team: my teammates mercilessly razzing me for eating chilli cheese fries as my pre-game meal and blaming that for why I cramped up/lost in the deciding match that pretty much dashed the hopes and dreams of my team for the tournament. If I weren’t me, I would focus on how much I laughed and laughed during that team bonding experience and how much I enjoyed the team camaraderie while we were rallying and figuring out how to win all five lines of our last flight match in order to advance (which we didn’t do). Alas, it’s me so…

Early Season League Ratings: In my USTA section, mid-year ratings come out around this time. USTA ratings are a BIG deal in my town. It’s just…it’s just stupid how big a deal it is. Teams disband; relationships are severed; and people cry because of this one silly pdf file.

There are 3 main reactions when ratings come out: 1. “Darn right.” 2. “Crap.” 3. “EXCUSE ME? How did the powers that be not recognize my greatness??” Remind me that I want to break down these thoughts and all the different variations just in time for when the year-end ratings come out. This year’s year-end list in particular is going to be a lot of fun…

…because I got bumped up when mid-season ratings came out. I’m sure I’ll unleash my hot sports opinions on this sudden bit of news at some point, but that is not this post (here’s a tease for you: I didn’t go undefeated and I barely won several of my matches this season. They clearly were meeting a quota by bumping me up). This post is about what happened afterwards and how I’ve inadvertently found myself in the cross hairs of one of the grand wizards of my tennis community.

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• Sometimes I’ll watch someone hit a forehand and cringe as the body and racquet are seemingly at war with one another and there’s awkward contact made with the ball. I’ll shake my head all dramatic-like at the terrible display of tennis form. Later at work, I’ll be listening to a song and start dancing to it…until I catch a reflection of my nonrhythmic self in the glass and think, “Touché, world. Touché.”

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If you haven’t signed up, yet, for the USTA team you told the captain or the co-captain you would join this spring/summer (real USTA is only a couple of months away; YES!), you are making your captain nervous. Yes, the league starts in April for men and in May for women and mixed. Yes, there’s no deadline to sign up. But dear goodness in Heaven, what if someone swoops in, whispers sweet nothings in your ear, and steals you away? WHAT IF THAT HAPPENS?!

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